The work of faculty and staff has been central to those efforts as dedicated and caring employees committed to serving our students in times of crisis and well before.
We have worked hard to successfully rise to the challenges involved in managing new modes of instruction, to meet the campus needs of students and faculty and administrators, to help students manage illness, to manage our own illnesses as faculty and staff, and to generally try to balance work and family in these extraordinary times.
Aside from the logistical, emotional and psychological impact of that work, we know there has been serious and ongoing economic impact on faculty, staff, and students, particularly as the inflation crises raises the costs of basic necessities to levels that challenge so many of us.
Even in times where there is no economic or health crises, access to high quality healthcare benefits and at manageable costs is key to what any employees deserve at a decent place of work, not to mention during a pandemic.
President Leahy, we were pleased to hear you name health and wellness as one of your four major priorities in your Convocation address in September, so we were stunned when we saw your proposed plan to significantly increase the cost of healthcare for your faculty, and are deeply disturbed that you may propose similarly outrageous increases to staff in upcoming negotiations as well.
The administration is proposing healthcare premium hikes for faculty employees that range questionable modest amounts to a jaw-dropping 57% in 2023. If that were also to be the plan you intend to propose to our staff, that would mean a Monmouth employee earning $80,000 a year who enrolled themselves in a high deductible family plan could expect to spend an estimated 15% of their monthly paycheck on healthcare alone.
For a Monmouth employee making $65,000 a year who would enroll in in the proposed traditional point of service family plan, they can expect to spend an estimated and head-spinning 18% of their monthly earnings on healthcare!
For some further perspective on how unconscionable these proposed rate increases really are, the Affordable Care Act sets the percentage an employee should reasonably pay for healthcare premiums at 9.8% of an employee’s income, or else risk financial penalties for the employer.
President Leahy, while we were encouraged to see your negotiating team agree that employee plan choice is an important goal, as are plans that allow all employees to seek out of network benefits, your proposal accomplishes these goals in name only.
Instead, your plan adds deductibles, and increases existing deductibles for Monmouth employees in ways that create rather than remove barriers to good care.
For instance, for an employee making $100,000 a year, they would have to spend the equivalent of nearly an entire month’s paycheck to meet a new proposed out of network deductible on the high deductible family plan. For employees in the lowest income brackets making $40,000 a year, they would have to spend closer to two months’ worth of pay just to meet an out-of-network deductible under your current proposal.
If we were to combine the outrageous proposed increase in premiums in your proposal to faculty, the shockingly high deductibles included, and the crisis of inflation together, many faculty can expect that the 3% salary increase we agreed to for 2023 will effectively disappear. The same would be true for our staff employees if they were faced with a similar proposal. In fact, for many employees, the math would add up not just to a salary wash, but a salary cut.
President Leahy, we are astounded by the audacity of these numbers from an administration that has publicly stated their commitment to our community’s health and wellness. We are astounded as we know the costs of healthcare to the university have remained relatively modest over the past six years, while the costs to employees have continued to increase significantly. We are astounded as we know the university has made important moves to self-insurance, with the faculty and staff union’s encouragement, and has entered into new pharmacy benefits program arrangements, that have saved the university over two million dollars, by their own estimate.
Choosing to finance affordable and high-quality employee healthcare is a hallmark of a decent employer. The benefits of that investment are reaped in greater employee health, employee recruitment and retention, employee engagement in the campus community, and a clear sign that the employer is committed to equity in the workplace. President Leahy, a real commitment to employee healthcare also sends a clear message to our students that you truly care about the quality of their lives at Monmouth University as the health of MU employees is inseparable from the health of MU itself.
We believe it is time to take the important step to righting the healthcare ship at Monmouth to meet the needs of staff and faculty, and one that supports a healthy university overall. That step should restore plan choice to all employees, restore equity to the community in our healthcare plan offerings, and should allow all employees to share the risks, burdens, and also university savings on healthcare fairly.
We, the leaders of the professional staff and faculty unions at Monmouth, write this on behalf of the nearly 400 Monmouth University employees we represent, and for whom these proposed hikes are a threat to their financial security and that of their families. President Leahy, as your team revises your healthcare proposal before the next bargaining session, we urge you to envision the health of your employees and in the name of decency, make a better proposal.
Holly Davis, Chief Steward, Office Professional Employees International Union
Johanna Foster, President, The Faculty Association of Monmouth University
